LEVERAGE POINTS
When trying to confront the Anthropocene, we are everywhere faced with the difficulty of wisely intervening in complex systems. Here another idea from system dynamics becomes important: “leverage points”, which are places in a system where a small change can make a big difference.
Leverage points were brought to the fore by one of the most prominent practitioners of system dynamics, Donella Meadows [Me3]. Meadows learned a lot from Forrester at MIT in the early 1970s, and she was deeply concerned with environmentalism and sustainability. In 1972 she helped write the famous study The Limits to Growth [Me1]. The huge controversy surrounding this should make clear that any model is no more accurate than its assumptions. It also shows that system dynamics is less helpful as a method of long-term prediction than as a focal point for community discussion and strategizing.
In the early 1990s, while attending a meeting on international trade, Meadows compiled a typology of leverage points [Me2]. One of her key observations was that less effective interventions tend to be quantitative—essentially, turning knobs—while more effective ones involve restructuring the system, or changing its entire goal. Many, but by no means all, of her leverage points are neatly framed in the language of system dynamics:
https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/
(1/n)
[Me3] Meadows, D. H. 2008. Thinking in Systems: A Primer. Edited by Diana Wright. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Publishing.
[Me2] Meadows, D. H. (1999). Leverage points: Places to intervene in a system. Hartland, Vt., The Sustainability Institute, 1999. Available at https://donellameadows.org/wp-content/userfiles/Leverage_Points.pdf
@meluzzy @gwenthefops i can go deeper i wrote this https://www.smogon.com/dex/bw/pokemon/reuniclus/vgc11/
@meluzzy @gwenthefops my proudest ev spread nothing can kill it
@juandesant
The companies that stop hiring over AI, stopped hiring due to outsourcing decades ago.
All companies who say they only hire seniors end up with expensive juniors.
@jbz
@hipsterelectron @gwenthefops please I need your mastery to translate the deep Pokémon lingo
@meluzzy @gwenthefops i can go deeper i wrote this https://www.smogon.com/dex/bw/pokemon/reuniclus/vgc11/
Karoline Leavitt is on paid vile spawn leave.
@CartyBoston I sincerely hope that when her midwife runs into trouble, they call a minister, not an OBGYN.
THEREFORE A COMPUTER MUST NEVER BE ALLOWED TO ENTER YOUR BATHROOM.
☕ Kurze Infoeinschaltung während der Kaffeepause #2mr
Von 11.-13. September veranstalten wir wieder den @berlinfediday ✨
Aktuell ist der Call for Participation offen. Wenn Du etwas zu sagen, vorzustellen oder zu fragen hast, laden wir Dich herzlich ein – Entwickler_innen, Forscher_innen, Journalist_innen, Jurist_innen, Künstler_innen und alle drumherum.
🔗 https://ctalx.c-base.org/fediday-2026/
:BoostOK:
RE: https://lillesand.social/@lillesandfolkebibliotek/116514808921481966
Lurer du på hvem og hva lillesand.social egentlig er? På fredag kan du treffe oss på @lillesandfolkebibliotek i forbindelse med Digital dugnad.
Digital dugnad
https://lillesandfolkebibliotek.no/digital-dugnad/
It's time to make war profiteers pay, and fund the switch to #renewables
https://www.greenpeace.org/international/act/call-for-new-taxes-on-fossil-fuel-profits/
@greenpeace you've never been to the British Isles, then? People here regularly invade Spain for sunshine! 😉
Pour ma page WinePortable (https://sebsauvage.net/wiki/doku.php?id=wineportable), j'ai la flemme de faire la même page (et la même doc) en anglais.
Mais je sais que si je faisais tout aussi en anglais ça aiderait plus de monde.
Vous en pensez quoi ?
@sebsauvage Parce que les angloghones prennent la peine de traduire leurs contenus ? 
@luna that's Every Tech Job right now isn't it
@luna the Literal next time i check my email after this
Nouvelle question les parisien·n·nes sûr·r·es :
Si j’ai besoin de faire Paris-Est - Meudon Ouest, il me faut prendre la 4 puis une mystérieuse « N » qui s’avère être un bête TER.
Ya moyen de prendre un billet pour les 2 d’un coup ? Ou faut les prendre à part ?
Merci 🙂
(Ah visiblement ça existe un ticket à 2,55€ qui combine le tout)
🗑️ Cloudera allegedly overlooked US job candidates: DoJ
「 The US Department of Justice has accused data and AI platform provider Cloudera of abusing a program designed to give permanent residency to foreign workers who take tough-to-fill positions by creating a parallel hiring process that dumped the applications of Americans to a non-functional email address 」
https://www.theregister.com/2026/04/28/cloudera_doj_employment_discrimination_lawsuit/
"Groups including JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and SMBC are trying to find ways to distribute portions of data centre-related deals to a broader range of investors, according to people familiar with the matter."
This means finding ways to shove the costs of bubble collapse into places and onto people who want nothing to do with it. This is model collapse for the economy.
@lazyb0y all the more reason for them to pay their fair share of the climate damage they carelessly cause.
nope.
it’s the reason „for them“ why they don’t bother doing anything because they aren’t hit that hard.
it’s the reason „for us“ why we ask them to engage more.
you should know and understand such semantic differences when actually working professionally in communication…
Jeg har hatt et lite prosjekt i dag for å prøve å finne Norges lengste stedsnavn. For de nysgjerrige: https://stigjohan.no/p/2026/05/norges-lengste-stedsnavn
i really need to write something about "agentic payments"
the whole payments sphere is gaga for AI agents
and blithely constructs towers of hypecrafting
that ignore the minor material detail that AI agents don't fucking work and AI agents keep fucking up if you let them near actual money
@davidgerard more like "they keep keep fucking up, but people actually care if they do it with money."